Signs Someone You Know May Be Grappling with Oxycodone Addiction

There isn’t anything wrong with taking oxycodone as prescribed by a doctor. It is ideal for people suffering from moderate to severe pain. However, when it is diverted into recreational use or non-medical use, it poses some very real dangers, including, dependence, addiction, and a variety of risky side effects.

One of the risky side effects could even be death if the user overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approximates each day, 78 Americans die from an overdose of opioids, including oxycodone. That may not seem like very many, but if someone you love dies of an oxycodone overdose, the fact that they were only one out of 44 that day won’t be very relevant. The risk isn’t worth it.

The following list collects a variety of signs that point to possible oxycodone addiction. If someone you know or love is showing signals that match those in this list, it is time to have a serious conversation with them about their oxycodone use.

People who have a substance use disorder need professional drug treatment; to learn more about appropriate programs, call 888-810-2643. Oxycodone.org is prepared to answer questions, discuss funding, and even recommend possible treatment facilities. Protect your loved ones from their prescription painkiller abuse disorder and overdose death.

Prescription Painkillers Cause a Reward Response

Human beings are wired to seek out pleasure and avoid discomfort. Oxycodone numbs pain and can impart euphoria when people get high, and those traits can lead people to take larger and larger doses, which leads to dependence.

If you notice that your loved one is taking oxycodone to feel more in control of their life or simply to feel good (maybe they chase the pills with alcohol for a buzz), they may have rewired their brain to signal a reward response when it gets oxycodone. That leads very quickly to tolerance, withdrawal, and full-blown addiction.

They Can’t Stop Taking the Medication

An oxycodone addict will start making the drug their number one priority.

Drug addiction is defined by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) as “a chronic, relapsing brain disease that is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences.” If your loved one continues using oxycodone even though it is negatively impacting their personal relationships, employment, family life, or their legal standing, they are an addict.

Addiction may also be signaled by the inability to limit their oxycodone use. If they promise only to use a certain amount or to only use so many times a day and they are simply incapable of maintaining these boundaries, their oxycodone use is no longer in their control.

Drugs Are Disrupting Their Life

The negative consequences discussed earlier grow larger and larger as oxycodone use consumes your loved one’s life. There are only 24 hours in a day, and people have to arrange their lives to fit all of their tasks and responsibilities into that amount of time. When oxycodone addiction is in place, your loved one will become preoccupied with obtaining, planning to use, using, the future high, and, possibly, feelings of regret about using. It becomes their whole life.

If your loved one is neglecting their responsibilities or disappears for days at a time, they are having a problem. If they are steadily using oxycodone while these things are happening, then that oxycodone is likely causing the problem.

They Are Using Their Oxycodone for Reasons Other Than Prescribed

Using oxycodone for purposes not intended by a physician is called non-medical use. The following are all examples of non-medical use.

• Taking bigger doses of oxycodone than prescribed
• Taking the oxycodone in a form not prescribed, such as crushing pills
• Prescription shopping, or seeking oxycodone prescriptions from multiple doctors
• Taking oxycodone prescribed for other people
• Omitting aspects of oxycodone use from conversations with a doctor
• Taking oxycodone after it’s no longer needed for pain management
• Taking oxycodone with alcohol or other drugs

Addiction is a chronic disease that controls the user. Your loved one can’t help but become wrapped up in their pleasures, impulses, fears, anxieties, and needs. This is why professional treatment is needed; it simply isn’t possible to fight addiction with willpower. Expert care and management are needed.

For help finding experts who can help your loved one take control of their life once again, contact Oxycodone.org at 888-810-2643.

Signs Your Loved One Needs Treatment for Oxycodone Addiction